40 Seconds
by RositaLG
Summary: B&B throughout season eight, set in 40 second increments. Written for Some1TookMyName's 40th birthday!


A/N: JMHaughey secretly sent out the call this summer for everyone in the Hamlet to write Some1tookmyname some fic based on the number 40 in honor of her 40th bday today. I chose 40 seconds and wrote pieces of the season 8 Pelant story line in 40 second increments. You can check out the other entries in "The One with the Stories" on JMHaughey's page.

OOOOO

A lot could happen in forty seconds. No one knew this more than Dr. Temperance Brennan.

A car could turn a corner and disappear for the next fifteen years.

A nickname could be bestowed.

A kiss could curl toes.

An insult could be hurled and a slap could be delivered, setting two people down a path that would take nearly a decade to alter.

A puff of coal dust could save an entire team.

A trigger could be pulled, destroying two hearts with one bullet.

A tumor could be diagnosed.

A woman could say no.

A man could decide to move on.

A sniper could take a life.

An elevator could freeze.

A child could be conceived.

A car could turn a corner and disappear…

Forty seconds could, and often did, change everything.

OOOOO

Brennan looked back, just once, in the rearview mirror. She tried not to but her curiosity could not be contained and she let her gaze flick up momentarily. Even from a distance, she knew what she had done. She saw it in the defeated slump of his shoulders and her brain automatically imagined the angry, tight line of his ticking jaw that appeared when he was upset.

She had just broken something that she wasn't entirely certain she could ever fix.

Then, she found the inner strength to look into the rearview mirror one more time. This time, she took in her peacefully content daughter, who had her eyes and Booth's chin and Brennan felt something steel within her.

She would do this for them. For all of them.

She would make the hard choices.

She would not turn back.

OOOOO

Booth stood on the porch, his hand wavering in front of the door knob, but unable to connect. He hadn't been home yet, between reporting Brennan's flight to the FBI and the inevitable questioning that followed, but the sun was starting to set behind the neighbor's roof across the street and it was time to go in. He knew that. He _knew_ that.

Still…

He stole a glance at the swing where just a few weeks before they had rocked Christine to sleep in the same warm, summer evening air and his heart clenched in his chest. He bit the inside of his cheek and just moved forward, letting the desire to escape the fresh memory propel him inside.

He turned on the hall light and set his jacket down at the bottom of the steps. He moved instinctively, checking the answering machine and the fridge on the off-chance she might have left him a note while he was gone, some kind of sign that she was coming back.

Nothing.

Everything was in its place. Everything was exactly where she had left it.

And it was that very normalcy that finally broke him.

OOOOO

It was a Wednesday afternoon when Angela showed up on Booth's doorstep, asking him to lunch. She had taken him to the Mall and sat down in an outdoor café where they could be seen.

"You know, hypothetically, if Brennan were able to send you a message, she would want you to know that she loves you and that she misses you." Angela had said quietly, while looking off into the horizon. Booth stared at her while she took another bite of salad and he felt his own sandwich turn to ash in his mouth. His hands began to shake as Angela smiled and waved at someone she knew passing by.

"How do you know that?" He finally stuttered.

"Just a hunch." She said covertly.

"Angela…."

"You know, if she were able to, she would tell you to solve the case." She said and Booth inhaled sharply, her words physically hurting him with every syllable she uttered. "Brennan wouldn't let a little thing like distance stop her from working so you certainly shouldn't let her absence stop you."

"Hypothetically speaking?" He stated and Angela nodded. "Hypothetically speaking, I love them more than anything."

"Oh, they know that, Booth." She smiled as she touched his hand. "They know."

OOOOO

Brennan felt her heart stop as Angela passed along Booth's message. Brennan read and re-read it before placing it over the candle and lighting the message on fire, sending it into the air, just as she had during the blizzard the year before.

"Daddy loves you, Christine." Brennan said with tears in her eyes. "He loves you so much." Christine just laid on the floor and babbled. However, when the message was gone, Brennan picked up her daughter and held her tightly against her shoulder as she tried to convince herself that he would still love _her_ after all of this.

OOOOO

Brennan knew that coming home wouldn't be easy. She knew better than anyone how it felt to be abandoned and she could only imagine that Booth felt it tenfold in losing his child and his partner in the same way.

So, on her first night home, Brennan entered the laundry room prepared for a fight. She wanted to clear the air and make things right, even if that was usually his burden. Brennan wanted things back to normal.

"Hey, look at that. Bones is back!" Booth replied at seeing her freshly dyed hair and she couldn't help but hear a double meaning in his voice.

"You still angry with me?" She asked hesitantly.

"No." He replied too quickly.

"I did what I thought was right for Christine." She explained.

"I know. You did the right thing." He spoke the words without a hint of emotion. He only detached when he felt so strongly about something, he shut down for fear of his own emotions overtaking him. She knew the technique well.

"If, if I told you we were leaving, you would have been an accomplice. We needed you here to catch Pelant." She continued.

"Bones, you don't have to explain. You did the right thing. I understand." Despite Booth's assurances, she still didn't believe him. He was saying what he thought he should say.

"I'm sorry." She said, knowing how weak it sounded.

"Why are you sorry for doing the right thing?" He asked.

"I'm sorry for how you must have felt when I did the right thing." She answered. She watched as his jaw got tight in that way it always did when he was upset and he looked away. He kicked the laundry basket at his feet and made a decision.

"Yeah, you know what?" He asked as he came towards her with a forced smile and kissed her. "I think I liked you…" he paused to kiss her again, "better as a blonde." Brennan inwardly rolled her eyes. He always did like them better blonde. Still, she played along.

"Oh no." She giggled, playing her part.

After all, they had always been good at pretending.

OOOOO

Booth hadn't expected such a simple sight to stop him dead in his tracks.

As he glanced into the Bone room and saw Brennan hunched over her lab table, something within him froze. Suddenly, all of the fighting and tension melted away and he saw the woman that he fell in love with. Her intense look, standing over a body, as she went to work was always a magical thing to watch but he felt like he was staring into a time capsule from years ago.

It was like he was seeing her again for the first time.

She worked best solo, despite her team's brilliance. It was her natural setting and Booth was hit with the realization that his real fear wasn't that she'd leave him again, but that she would remember that she didn't need him to survive. She was totally capable of living her life alone, raising their daughter, making a living. It was unsettling how easily she could move on without him. He had spent years trying to get her to depend on other people, to remind her that she was part of something larger, and he was terrified that just three short months of solitude would erase years of his hard work.

Erase him.

And he had no idea how to fix it.

OOOOO

Brennan slipped in the front door and saw him sitting next to a bottle of scotch. For the first time since she'd gotten back, she finally saw the results of the damage she had inflicted reflected in Booth's body language. He looked…tired.

"Hi." He said meekly.

"Hi." She returned.

"Kinda late." The statement doubled as an accusation and she heard it.

"Well, I went to see Sweets." She explained.

"Why?"

"Cuz." She sighed. "Something is wrong with me." She said bluntly. She watched as Booth's face fell.

"No, Bones. Nothing is wrong with you."

"I thought today when we apologized to each other that everything was fine."

"Because we were being polite." He said with a nod.

"Yes." She replied. Booth rubbed his eyes in exhaustion. "We were polite but you still knew that everything wasn't fine."

"I was uh…hoping that it would be, you know, in the future."

"Only if we admit that it isn't fine right now." She pointed out. "Sweets says that I am subconsciously rebelling against the fact that my happiness is now contingent on your happiness and Christine's."

"Sweets, he's good with the psychology, okay? But we're more than psychology. We're going to be okay." He promised as he looked her directly in the eye. She sighed. He was the one who had taught her the importance of eye contact and she took the gesture sincerely.

If he honestly believed it, which he did, then she would trust him.

They would be okay.

OOOOO

Booth set down the bag of jerky as he tried to comprehend the jibberish that was coming out of his partner's mouth.

"Just…Will you just slow down?" He requested as he focused on her.

"The point is…" she sighed, "I want to marry you." She said simply and Booth stopped breathing. "Will you marry me, Booth?"

"Are you serious?" He asked, unable to believe what she was doing.

"Yes. I've been afraid, I've been stubborn, and I've been in love. And marriage would make you so happy."

"Are you sure? You're not just saying this because of Pelant and everything that's going on here?"

"Positive. All this just made me see things more clearly. I love you. I want you to be my husband. I wanna, I wanna spend the rest of my life with you." Booth fought the small smile that quirked at his lips at his brainy scientist sounding so damn romantic. "Say something." She begged.

"Yes." He said simply, knowing how nervous she must be. "Of course. Yes." He smiled. Brennan smiled and kissed him happily.

And just like that, everything was not only fixed, it was better.

They had each other, and nothing could ever destroy that.

OOOOO

"Booth." He answered the phone with a smile.

"You won't marry her, Agent Booth." Booth felt his heart stop.

"It's Mom." He lied to his partner as he stood up and walked further away

"You don't get to decide that." Booth argued, once he was out of ear shot.

"But I do. I always make the decisions. And Dr. Brennan can't know the reason why you're turning her down. If you tell her, I'll know." Pelant promised.

"We're done here." Booth said, getting ready to hang up the phone.

"If you ignore me," Pelant said quickly, "you'll be responsible for the deaths of five innocent people: the teenager with the green shirt and head phones, couple on the bench, the old man playing chess by himself." Booth spotted each of the innocent bystanders as Pelant listed them off. Booth felt his stomach drop, already knowing Pelant would do it, right here, in front of his family.

"I'm gonna find you and I'm gonna kill you." Booth promised. Pelant continued to flaunt his genius over the phone but Booth was already moving on to his revenge. "I will kill you." Booth repeated again as he hung up the phone. As he turned around, he saw Brennan smile and wave at him. He smiled meekly back despite the fact that he felt like he was going to throw up.

Forty seconds could, and often did, change everything.


End file.
